April 2017

I have a long-ish meeting today of the selection committee for the Institute for Policy Studies’ Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award. It’ll be nice to see everyone on that group. When not there, I’ll be in the office dashing off dozens of e-mails and messages, for two events.

First, at 9:00 this morning we’re launching our report and database of 107 U.S. military and police aid programs. This is the culmination of a project I’ve been working on for years—it’s been the ultimate “on the back-burner” endeavor for most of those years, but it’s also a resource that, if printed out, totals more than 150 pages. It reflects hundreds of hours of work. You can see the database now; the report is coming this morning. While I don’t expect a giant compendium of military aid programs to make a big media splash today, there are a lot of people out there who are going to find this intensely useful: congressional staff who oversee these programs, journalists who cover defense, human rights and arms control advocates, and even some folks at State and Pentagon. I’ll be sending out a lot of personal notes today to make sure these people see it and know how to use it.

Second, the week of May 8 we’re going to San Diego and Tijuana for more border-security and migration research. We’ve split up our requests for meetings, and I’ve got four people or organizations to track down.

Also I note that after several days of chilly rain, it’s going to be sunny and 85 degrees today in Washington. This makes me happy.

It’s really hard to predict where this is headed. I found useful, though, a column published Monday by Luis Vicente León, a widely cited analyst who runs Venezuela’s Datanálisis polling firm.

León sees two scenarios. Here’s an English translation of the key excerpt. Highlights are mine.

The government’s “exit costs” are almost infinite, which makes it a sort of “kamikaze.” Added to this is the very low possibility of a successful negotiation to lower these exit costs, because the opposition still needs to perform two tasks in order to get there. First, it needs negotiating power, something to offer in exchange that is compelling enough for the government to either to accede or to find itself obligated to exit from power. Second, it needs a valid interlocutor, someone with enough internal control and power to commit the opposition to uncomfortable accords with a government that has explicitly violated its rights.

The first need can be filled with pressure from the street, which—rather than a single “epic” march—would have to become an unstoppable demonstration in all the country and of all the country, making the nation ungovernable. But this would still leave the second variable without a response: who can negotiate to lower the exit costs?

With this in mind, these are the two most probable scenarios.

1. One in which opposition pressure continues to grow, but the government remains willing to repress it brutally and tirelessly, even amid international repudiation and sanctions, because it sees only one outcome: that its leaders’ heads get cut off if they give in. With a military sector also committed to the government side, this scenario could be prolonged. This would lead to the formation of paramilitary and guerrilla groups around the country, which would become part of the nation’s everyday life—but with the government remaining in power.

2. Another in which pressure from the opposition reaches its maximum level and fractures Chavismo and the military internally, due to fear of what could happen to them in the future, with the likelihood of being held accountable for brutal and evident human rights violations. In this case, it will probably be the military that decides to seek and coordinate negotiations to reduce and control exit costs. That negotiation would take place with an opposition leader who has managed to capitalize on the struggle and become the unquestioned spokesperson for those pressing for change.

Venezuela

The MUD may not have succeeded in stopping the government’s march toward authoritarianism and militarization. But to its credit, the MUD has made this march costlier than Chávez or Maduro ever imagined

The fact that the U.S. State Department chose not to take on an assertive, public role at the OAS allowed Latin American countries such as Mexico and Peru to take the lead. It also made it politically palatable for countries usually reticent to pressure Venezuela to get involved

I won’t be in my office at all today, except for a brief period in the late afternoon. (How to contact me)

I’ve got an interview with Voice of America, a planning meeting for our border work, a meeting with a journalist, and an event at the National Defense University where Colombia’s military is talking about peace accord implementation. Then I’ve got to run out at 5:00 for a family commitment. So there probably won’t be many updates to this site today.

The Trump White House came dangerously close to shutting down the U.S. government over funding for its proposed wall along the border with Mexico. Here I explain the budget process, what we know of the administration’s wall-building plans, and why it’s a bad idea.

A new set of Chiquita Papers, made possible through the National Security Archive’s FOIA lawsuit, has for the first time made it possible to know the identities and understand the roles of the individual Chiquita executives who approved and oversaw years of payments

Identified as “high priority” in the document are the border sectors of the Rio Grande Valley in the southern tip of Texas — encompassing Rio Grande City, McAllen and Weslaco — as well as El Paso, Tucson and San Diego

Although he thinks eradication in Mexico is important, Quiñones added that the “market has rapidly evolved in the last couple years, as Mexican traffickers have looked for new non-plant alternatives to heroin

Western Hemisphere Regional

According to a detailed 15-page State Department budget document obtained by Foreign Policy, the overhaul also includes rechanneling funding from development assistance into a program that is tied closely to national security objectives

I’m giving a talk about Colombia this morning to a classroom full of diplomats-in-training at the Foreign Service Institute. Then I hope to stop at home on the way to the office and record a podcast.

This was going to be about Donald Trump’s insistence on funding the border wall in the 2017 budget, which Congress needs to pass this week, even if it meant shutting down the government. However, the news last night is that Trump is backing down, which may put off the border-wall funding debate until the 2018 budget, which Congress must try to pass in the summer and fall. (The 2018 budget year starts on October 1, but Congress is nearly always late in approving it.)

So anyway, the podcast needs adjusting. Hopefully I’ll have that done in time to go back to WOLA for a couple of meetings with staff. In particular, we’re going to the U.S.-Mexico border in two weeks and need to start nailing down meetings.

Other than a narrow window around mid-day, I am in meetings all day today. (How to contact me)

I’ve got a weekly staff meeting, and there’s a lot to plan for this week, with Trump’s border wall playing a central role in the debate over the federal budget, which expires Friday. (That’s the last weekday of Trump’s first 100 days, and we have a lot to say about his border security policies so far.) We have a visit from a Latin America-based International Committee of the Red Cross official whose work overlaps a lot with ours. We’re bidding farewell to our interns. And we’re joining the team of Security Assistance Monitor to brainstorm improvements to their revamped website.

When not in meetings today (which is about 2 hours), I want to sew up the introductory text of our military and police aid programs publication and website. If there’s any time left over, I’ll work on a podcast about border security and also a “links” post on this blog.

On the home front, this evening an exchange student from Spain (in whose home my daughter stayed in February) arrives to stay with us for the next two weeks. So if posting here is less frequent over the next several days, it’s because I’m out showing off the wonders of Washington instead of sitting in a chair typing into a computer.

It’s going to be one of those weeks: it’s Monday morning and there’s already nearly 20 hours of meetings and events on the calendar. These include a visit from the ICRC, giving a talk at the Foreign Service Institute, a National Defense University event on Colombia’s military and the post-conflict, and a meeting to nominate recipients of an annual human rights award.

I expect the border security work to be big this week, as the federal budget expires on Friday and a fight over Trump’s wall proposal may bring the U.S. government to (or close to) a shutdown. We’ll have a lot to say as the week progresses. First, by tomorrow, I hope to put out a personal podcast explaining where all of that stands.

For now, though, my first priority is getting our giant compendium of military and police aid programs out the door. This also requires me to iron out some bugs from the transfer of our website to defenseoversight.wola.org (which, frustratingly, have kept me from posting news links this morning).